Hiding a Broken Girl
by librarylemming
Summary: This is just a glimpse into a moment of Penn's life, a moment full of pain. Oneshot.


**A/N: This story is for anyone who looked in the mirror and decided they didn't like what they saw. You are not alone.  
Disclaimer: own nothing. **

She stood in front of the shabby old mirror, wearing nothing but her underwear. The mirror was dirty and covered in a fine layer of dust and the brown, once neatly polished frame was now faded and dull. The heating in the room was turned up too high for comfort, but it eased her sniffles and allowed her to stand without the multiple layers that normally shrouded her. She was stripped bare, in all senses of the word. She had turned her bedside lamp on, and it casted an orange glow on all it touched, making everything seem dream-like and transient. Her dark drapes had been pulled tightly shut, not an inch of sunlight seeping through. She was afraid, afraid someone would see, afraid to lay herself out so plainly and simply in front of even something as simple as a beaten up mirror. On her plain bed with its plain grey linen lay her dark black clothes - sweaters upon sweaters upon sweaters. The school dress code allowed nothing other than black, but she probably would have chosen those colours anyway. They helped her fade, helped her hide, helped her disappear into the tangled web that Sword and Cross spun for its troubled students. But now, standing in her dilapidated room with nothing but her ratty old black bra and underwear on her body, she was so totally and utterly visible that it was hard for her to stay still, to stop fidgeting, even though the silence that surrounded her was so complete that she couldn't be anything but alone. Completely alone.

With a deep sigh, Penn reached for her glasses. They sat somewhat crookedly on her face, as they always had, and her world was brought into sharp focus. Instead of the pale blur she saw in the mirror, she saw herself in all her glory. _Or lack of,_ she thought crudely. She took in every detail of herself.

She had mousy brown hair that didn't look good in any light, except for no light at all. It was curly, unruly, annoying.  
She hated it.  
Her purple glasses were old and out of fashion, perched on her nose on a funny angle, it made her eyes seem too big – even for her wide face. She hated them.  
Her eyes were a non-descript brown colour. There was nothing special about them. No amazing pattern, no hidden depth, no beautiful adjective to describe them. They were plain brown. She hated them.  
Her face was wide, too wide to be considered beautiful, and she had pimples here and there that made it even worse.  
She hated it.  
Her nose seemed out of place, her lips were too thin for her liking, and the smattering of freckles across her face made her seem paler and more washed out than she really was.  
She hated them.

Tears pricked her eyes but she brushed them furiously away.

Her arms were as pale as her face, short and stocky like the rest of her body. The tendons in her hand stuck out, and they disgusted her.  
She hated them.  
Her legs were short, too. They were muscular, but she only thought of them as chunky.  
She hated them.  
The worst thing, she thought to herself, was her midsection. In her mind it was twice the size it really was, bulging out, making her despise herself all the more. She grabbed at her stomach, angry, furious, and hurt. She wanted to rip it away, so that she could match the size of all the other girls at Sword and Cross, so that she could feel normal. For once.  
She didn't just hate these individual things, she hated herself. In her eyes, she was this short, fat, ugly creature whose future included only loneliness and solitude. A future buried in books – her only escape. A future of hiding. Of no one. Of nothing.

When really, she was just an ordinary girl. Nothing about her was truly ugly or awful. She was normal. As normal as anyone else.

But Penn couldn't see that, hidden as she was behind a veil of self-loathing. A veil she was afraid that no one would try to lift.

With a barely muffled cry, she kicked the mirror away, disgusted by her reflection, hurt deeply by what she saw. It fell to the floor, cracking and splintering, spilling fragments of the reflected world all over her bedroom floor. Through eyes blurry with tears, she saw hundreds of Penn's, face twisted with pain. Looking at the pieces that were scattered all over, she saw her face puffy with tears, eyes red and mouth open in abject horror. She couldn't bear it anymore. With a quick sweep of her hand, she pushed the remnants of the mirror away to the corner of her room, slicing her hand open in the process. She covered the pile with one of her too-large sweaters, hiding any trace of them. Blood surfaced in the cuts that had been made, but she didn't really notice or care for that matter. She was too lost in thoughts to pay attention. She threw herself carelessly on her bed, burying her face in the pillow as she began to sob. Her cut hand stained the underside of the pillow, leaving a faint red trail as she gripped it tighter and tighter. She ripped her glasses off, sending the world into a blur once again, and threw them onto her bedside table.

_How could I do this to myself? _she wondered. _How could I let myself become this ugly, ugly girl? Who will ever love me? Who will ever want me as I am, for who I am, not just for my brains or knowledge? Who will ever want ME? _

Sobs racked through her body, reverberating deep within her chest, to a heart that she thought no one would ever try to win.

Someone knocked on her door, loudly, startling her.

"Penn, you there? It's Luce. Do you wanna come to lunch with me? I need to talk to you," Luce's voice called, somewhat muted due to the thick wooden door that stood between her and Penn's room. Again, she knocked. "Hello? Penn?"

With a great gulp of air Penn tried to calm herself, tried to stifle her cries, tried to gather composure. She cleared her throat once, twice, trying to make sure it was clear of any obvious signs of distress that Luce would notice.

"Coming!" Penn yelled, dragging herself up into a sitting position.

She pulled on her clothes, layers and layers and layers, yanking them on quickly. Her hand she finally noticed, wincing as it slid over the fabric. Grabbing her glasses and shoving them on, Penn walked towards the door. Pulling her sleeve down so that her hand was completely covered she opened the door to Luce.

"Hi Luce. Sure thing. Lunch sounds great," Penn said quietly.

Luce studied her face, almost certain that she was hiding something. Her eyes looked too red, and she wasn't in her usual bright mood – well, as bright as the mood gets in Sword and Cross. Noticing Luce's quizzical gaze, Penn waved her off, mentioning something about allergies as she headed out the door and closed it behind her. Before she left, however, she paid another glance to the pile of broken mirror shards hiding underneath her sweater in the corner.

She wondered if she was the only broken girl hiding behind her clothes like a shield.  
She didn't think she was.

As she headed off with Luce, her heart went out to those girls, hoping that soon everything would change, hoping that she would never have to feel this way again, hoping that no one would. Until then, she would be just like that mirror – broken, shattered, waiting to be fixed.


End file.
